This is the final part of a four part series examining the potential move from the FCS to the FBS.
Part 2: Money
Part 3: Facilities & TV
Finding a Conference
Now, we all must remember, you cannot just decide to go FBS. You don’t get to force your way up the way Liberty did either. Liberty was able to threaten a lawsuit for being kept out due to their religious views, and also has incredible amounts of money to throw at being an independent program until they got into CUSA. Most universities looking to move up, including SDSU, do not have the funds to do that and be successful even if they were able to finagle a way to force themselves into the FBS. Look at how things are going for UMASS or New Mexico St. It is UGLY. So you need an invite.
That were it gets tricky! Neither of the xDSU’s are positioned well geographically to get an invite. As we have all seen with the recent FBS invites that were extended, the size of the media market still matters more to many conferences than the actual quality of the program and the actual following that the teams have because when it comes to media deals, that’s what matters to them. Even with the blueprint of the Sunbelt adding strong programs with great followings from FCS, you could see from the moves CUSA made that it still matters where you are. And a media market of 250,000 just doesn’t move the needle. Now, beyond that, its not impossible to get an invite, that factor just doesn’t help. What it likely does is quite possibly force the xDSU’s to make the jump together once again.
We can’t forget, this won’t be a football only move unless it is a very, very unique situation. Football only members are exceptionally rare in FBS, and no matter what some xDSU proponents say, that’s not happening. Hypothetically, you will be sending your Olympic sports around to these far flung schools, and you will need a travel partner to help negate the costs to some of the other member schools. Plus you will likely need movement in the FBS to spur an invite, because if a conference adds a school, you are having to add an extra slice to the same size pie so to speak. So each conference member would be getting less money from their media deal unless someone leaves. We all know what this boils down to… the money.
Another positive when it comes to becoming FBS is the money from your P5 buy games. G5 FBS schools get far larger checks from P5 schools than FCS schools will get. Take a peek at what Idaho got paid last year for their FBS games. Those contracts were signed when Idaho was FBS, and they were fat. They regularly get to be over a million dollars per game. That’s not too shabby. Plus its easier to get scheduled by those programs when you have FBS next to your name. At least if they lose to a good G5 program its an upset by a team that’s the same division that they are, and if you’re a good enough team, its even commendable to “schedule tough out of conference”.
What else matters to getting an invite, particularly to a better conference like the MWC? Basketball. Basketball matters in these conversations. If you can bring a high caliber basketball program with the potential to make the conference money when you make the big dance, along with a strong football program and following, you can help your prospects greatly. It adds value to a revenue sport in the collegiate athletics crowd. You can’t be a program that is exceptional at being good for a three day tournament setting at the end of the year but miserable to mediocre for the OOC and half the conference season (cough, NDSU, cough). You need to be at minimum a team that won’t drag the league down in the important ratings.
When you boil all of this down, where do you go, if you even can go? CUSA is a mess, extremely far out of the way, and doesn’t pay nearly well enough to make it worthwhile. Unless they make a football only offer, it really doesn’t make sense. Even then, outside of being able to say you’re FBS and demanding more for your payday games, would you be that excited to have Sam Houston St as a conference game over the rivalry with UNI or other conference foes? How about UAB or Middle Tennessee? Those aren’t exactly the teams you think of when you think FBS home game, and to be honest, in my eyes, they are lesser programs in general than the current home slate. Plus add in having half your home games be Tuesday or Thursday games? No thank you. Is it possible that CUSA could end up desperate enough at some point to allow the xDSUs to keep their local media deals and a football only invite along with everything else? Maybe, but even then I wouldn’t want to go unless its become FBS or bust, which SDSU is not yet.
Well, how about the MAC? To be honest, I don’t see that as much different than CUSA as far as moving up and being in a better conference. Buffalo and Western Michigan don’t particularly get my blood pumping for a home game, neither does having to watch games on that awful turf that Eastern Michigan does. Add to it a weak TV contract and weeknight games and I’m not in on that either.
What about the MWC or the (incredibly unlikely) AAC? Those would be the two conferences, as it sits right now, are the ones worth jumping for. But even the MWC would need a monstrous shake up, plus passing on multiple FBS schools in TX, which are more within their geographic footprint, to invite the xDSU’s. Oh, also there are those two pesky Montana schools that are comparable to the xDSU’s profile and also would fit much better into the conference without adding an extra time zone to the footprint. What I’m getting at is that neither situation is likely, or nearly as likely as some would hope to believe.
Conclusion
In the end, I don’t see SDSU jumping to FBS just for the sake of jumping to FBS and to be honest I’m perfectly happy with that. There is an incredible amount of momentum building within the fanbase and the region about Jackrabbit football. Do I think that in the future it will happen? I feel that eventually SDSU will move up to FBS or will be a part of the second tier that emerges if the P5 splits, and I do believe Justin Sell has them in a good spot should they decide the appropriate opportunity has presented itself. I also believe that NDSU is much more focused on moving up, and will apply pressure to SDSU to jump with them to help their chances of an invite. How will that go, I am not sure.
Why even have this article if you don’t think SDSU is moving up? Well, we’ve seen periods of massive upheaval across the landscape multiple times in the recent past, and it doesn’t appear to be done. With all the discussion going on about new rules for all sorts of different aspects of the NCAA classifications happening, who knows what’s going to happen. Something that has also always been at the back of my mind since the spring season in 2020 happened the week of the Marker Game. Early in the week during his press conference Coach Stig was asked about moving to FBS by the Fargo media, and replied something along the lines of “absolutely not”. Later that week when he was doing an interview with Dom Izzo for his podcast, when he was asked again he had a much softer tone about a potential move, essentially saying “I’m happy where we are and I love the FCS, but if it is decided that the university will be better served going to FBS then I will go along with it.” That was very interesting to me and made me wonder if there was a conversation that was had in between those two instances that made Coach change his tune. That’s purely speculation, and in the coming years I expect far more speculation to come down the line. But who knows what will happen in this landscape of never ending change?
I do know that should the time come where we are hoping to make a bowl game, instead of watching across the country to debate who should be seeded where and who will get sent to who, I will greatly miss it. I do believe that FCS is the highest “pure” level of college football, where huge NIL deals don’t exist, scandals are generally small affairs, and while the players are playing for the dream of making the NFL they’re also more invested in their teammates than they are at the FBS level. There is a uniqueness to the FCS that I would miss. The FBS just has more of a glitzy, corporate production feel to it with the huge dollars that are thrown around between tv contracts, NIL deals, and everything that comes with it. However, the allure of becoming a G5 power along the lines of a Boise St that captures the state of South Dakota to the degree that Iowa or Nebraska has captured their state and become a household name is certainly attractive. There are dozens of reasons to and not to move up, and they won’t be going away anytime soon. But for the moment, I’m really enjoying where SDSU is at.
Go Jacks,
Brendan
Brendan is a cohost of the wildly successful “B-Team Podcast” and the author of this four part series.
